I called Mrs. Treon to get further information about Oswald's alleged phone call to John Hurt on Nov. 23, 1963 from the Dallas County Jail.

I asked Mrs. Treon if she recalled executing an affidavit about the facts of the call. She said that she might have made one out, but that she can't recall now. She said that after she and her husband mentioned the incident at the Dallas switchboard to a family friend, Winston Smith, Sheriff Owen of Greene County in Missouri visited her at her home with two men to discuss the incident. She said she is not sure but believes she mentioned the matter to Smith in 1967 and that the sheriff came by a few days later. She said she and her husband have known Smith for years and have transacted real estate business with him. She said they mentioned it to Smith casually at a dinner. She said he was just a friend and not working on the Kennedy case in any way to her knowledge.

When Sheriff Owen came by with the two men, she thinks they were introduced to her as F.B.I., but she has no clear recollection of that. She said they appeared interested in the information as though they were hearing it for the first time. They took the slip on which Mrs. Treon had copied the telephone information because they wanted to make a copy. The only other contact Mrs. Treon had with anyone on the issue was to call Sheriff Owen after a period of time passed and the men had not returned the telephone slip to her. She said Sheriff Owen was able to get it back for her and that was the last she discussed it with him. She said Sheriff Owen is still Sheriff in Greene County, Missouri (telephone number 417-865-6644).

Mrs. Treon said the only other place she might have mentioned the switchboard incident was with family. She said her daughter Sharon worked at the time at the Dallas Police Department and was present when this incident occurred. She said I can contact Sharon to get more information. She gave her daughter's number as (417) 883-8045.

Mrs. Treon said that it has concerned her from conversations with Committee investigaor Harold Rose that we might not have completely correct information. She sais the sequence at the switchboard was that when Oswald came on, both she and Louise Swinney got on the line to take the call. She said, however, it was clear that Mrs. Swinney intended to handle it, as though she had instructions, so Mrs. Treon let her handle it, but Mrs. Treon stayed on the line. She said she was therefore able to hear everything Oswald said and she is sure he asked for the name John Hurt and gave the two numbers. She sais that as she listened she wrote the information down on a regular telephone call slip. However, since Mrs. Swinney actually handled the call, Mrs. Treon signed her name to the slip she intended to keep as a souvenir. She said the notations on the slip of "DA" and "CA" stand for did not answer and cancelled, because the call was never actually put through. Mrs. Treon said she never retrieved any paper from the wastebasket on which Mrs. Swinney supposedly entered the information.

Mrs. Treon said her lasting impression of the events that night is that Mrsw. Swinney had been instructed by someone to not put the call through to Oswald. She said her belief was strengthened by the fact that Mrs. Swinney did not leave work as soon as Mrs. Treon came on that night as she usually did. Instead she remained as though she had been assigned to handle the call.

Mrs. Treon said she also intended to tell Rose that her daughter Sharon thought she recognized one of the men who came into the telephone room when Oswald tried to make his call. She said Sharon thought the man might have been one of the officers who was with Oswald just before he was shot in the basement; she thought it was the one who was handcuffed to him.

I told Mrs. Treon that I would send her a copy of the affidavit the Committee received to see if she recognized it. She said she does not know how it got to the Committee. She said she has had no contact with the Committee other than when Rose called her about the allegation; she never contacted the Committee herself.

She said she knows of no bad blood between herself and Mrs. Swinney.

I called Sheriff Owen's office but he had left for the day.

Recommended Follow-up (if any)

Call Sheriff Owen about the allegation and the purported affidavit.

Call Jim Kostman and ask him how he got the affidavit when he forwarded to the Committee.

Contact Winston Smith to confirm the story told by Mrs. Treon and find out if he is the Smith who worked for Garrison's office as alleged by Kostman.

Signature:

Surell Brady

Dr. Grover B. Proctor, Jr. is a historian and former university Dean who is widely acknowledged as an expert on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. He has published numerous articles, lectured extensively, and has frequently been consulted by print and broadcast media.
While most of his work comprises analysis and interpretation of the assassination research phenomenon, he broke new ground in the investigation in the early 1980's with his work on Lee Harvey Oswald's alleged telephone call from the Dallas jail to a former military counterintelligence agent in Raleigh, N.C.

These documents have been collected and are being shared purely as an educational service to benefit historians and researchers who have an interest in this subject matter. Use of all materials is intended to fall under the "public domain" and/or "fair use" protection of U.S. copyright law, and they are reproduced for no purpose that involves monetary gain